New Fastmail Theme/Interface

[retposhto]

Seems I've come across a little bug in the new Fastmail interface, unless it's something to do with my browser. When a subfolder receives a new message, the parent folder is shown in bold. The problem is that after reading the message, the parent folder continues to be highlighted in bold (even though there are now no unread messages in it or any of its subfolders). The only way to get rid of the bold highlighting is to manually refresh the page.

[pjwalsh]

Originally Posted by JeffK

For what it's worth I appear to be able to run the new interface and the classic interface side by side in the same browser (in this case Google Chrome) accessing the same Fastmail account.

Good tip, facilitates comparison of the two interfaces. Thanks.

[hadaso]

Originally Posted by Ladrillo

After a few days I have to admit I like the new interface very much.

I agree that it can be the base to a very good interface, perhaps better than the previous one, provided that a lot of functionality that's in the "classic" interface would be made available (whether the same way or in some equivalent way) in the new interface.

Originally Posted by Ladrillo

The problem is that I find myself switching back to classic every day, at least once, to be able to use some functionality that is missing from the new UI.

It makes it twice as frustrating. If I didn't like the new UI I could simply stick to classic.

I agree here too. On Firefox at home (curently version 13) for some reason I can get to the classic interface from the new interface in three clicks (and the new interface is still working in other tabs): Settings, then Advanced settings, then Mailbox. At work today (Firefox version 6) I couldn't do the same, and after the new interface was hanging indefinitely ("Loading ......................") I logged out and used "Classic" until I went home. Being able to uase both interfaces in the same browsers at home allows me to test how much work I can do with the new interface (and to learn how to accomplish some things in an alternative way). adding things like on the fly changing from conversations to separate messages and back would allow me to spend even more time on the new interface (as would be introducing deletion of attachments and setting folder to save to on the Compose screen, that are the two actions that send me most often to "Classic").

Originally Posted by Ladrillo

... none of that would scare potential customers away. Why oh why did they deprecate useful features?

I would like to thing that most of these features are not depracated, but rather that over time they would be introduced into the new interface, and that the new interface was released as it is now with thought that users that need the functionality that is not available yet can use classic until the functionality is made available in the new interface, as it is being developed, and not with the thought that the most demanding customers will stick to the old interface forever.

However, FastMail representatives here said the the "Classic" interface would be maintained for mobile and older browsers, They have not said that it would be maintained to cater to the users that use any other functionality that's not in the new interface. My interpretaion of "for mobile and older browsers" is that it is meant mainly to provide functionality equivalent to what's available in the new interface for platforms that are not suitable to handle the new interface. This doesn't preclude the possibility that features that are no longer available in the main (new) interface would gradually disappear from the older "Classic" interface, as it's purpose is defined as a falldown option for older or limited platforms, and not as a functionally superior alternative to the main platform. I hope it works the other way.

[bjh]

What bugs the hell out of me is the contempt shown to users. The whole point of Fastmail was to provide service to people who were discriminating, who weren't happy with Gmail, or Ymail, or the other alternatives. People who [liked the interface and, presumably, found it useful, and powerful, and valuable. And then, one day, it's just yanked out from under us. That's a really powerful customer service statement...

[Terry]

I did not like the new Nerdmail.....so I went back to the classic but sadly I don't seem to enjoy using it like I did a few weeks ago.....its strange how my attitude has changed towards Fastmail, at one time I would have rated them one of the worlds best, now to me they are nothing really special having lost some of the old classic features.....I had a simple log in screen but that no longer works as someone changed all the login links.

Anyway I suppose I will get over it and come back in a few days time, I"m currently diverting all my mail to my local ISP who uses an Ajax type browser.

[n5bb]

Originally Posted by Soseth

... I have to scroll down and click on "Full Interface" every time to get the Interface I want. ...

As akorvemaker suggested, I also think you are being sent to the mobile site. One of my friends has a similar problem, and I'm trying to get him to make some tests also. Please try the following:

If your PC has the video resolution set to less than 600 pixels in either dimension (640x480, for example), please try increasing the resolution so that neither dimension is less than 600 pixels.

Bill

[Joe Green]

Originally Posted by Joe Green

What I do get annoyed about is the apparently gratuitous differences between the classic stylesheets as they were before The Big Switch and as they are now. Most noticeable to me is the font used for plain-text reading in the Concise stylesheet. Before, it was some moderately pleasant font; now it's some vile one. I know it's not just me because I've seen it for other users on other browsers on other OSs. I'll post some screenshots tomorrow. I'm so glad that OliverD had or recreated copies of the old stylesheets (missing some icons but I'll live with that for now).

Damn. It says I may not post attachments.

[deanchapman]

Well for what it's worth - I have been a FM customer for many many years, paying the enhanced subscription and hosting sites with them.
FM has always, for me, been about the pure simplicty, efficiency and reliability.
So what is all the new interface about, no more do my HTML signatures work, no more can I check spelling, plus many other 'usability' features have gone.
Yes, granted there are some nice new features, but the loss of the above means it is not usable (and not ready for release)
FM have tried (unsuccessfully) to fix something that wasn't broke.
In the world of the www, please let somebody KISS. We don't all want more, more, more functionality - If we did, we wouldn't have chosen fastmail in the first place.
I for one, will only be using the classic interface and when (if) this disappears I will leave FM.
Sorry FM, but I think you have misjudged your user-base and you seem to be joining the ranks of the also-rans who just churn out feature-after-feature with little regard or respect for what your (niche) userbase wants.

[odedp]

Originally Posted by deanchapman

Well for what it's worth - I have been a FM customer for many many years, paying the enhanced subscription and hosting sites with them.
FM has always, for me, been about the pure simplicty, efficiency and reliability.
So what is all the new interface about, no more do my HTML signatures work, no more can I check spelling, plus many other 'usability' features have gone.
Yes, granted there are some nice new features, but the loss of the above means it is not usable (and not ready for release)
FM have tried (unsuccessfully) to fix something that wasn't broke.
In the world of the www, please let somebody KISS. We don't all want more, more, more functionality - If we did, we wouldn't have chosen fastmail in the first place.
I for one, will only be using the classic interface and when (if) this disappears I will leave FM.
Sorry FM, but I think you have misjudged your user-base and you seem to be joining the ranks of the also-rans who just churn out feature-after-feature with little regard or respect for what your (niche) userbase wants.

+1 (me too...)

[mgem]

I've been using the new interface for most of the time since it was implemented and overall I've been fairly happy with it. And this coming from someone who hates when these sort of things change. I like the cleaner, more modern look and some of the new features. But my frustration has grown over some of the changes, most of them mentioned already here, especially the hard-to-find reply button, the quick move-to-folder buttons, and not being able to always have the option to delete and go to folder or delete and go to previous/next message. I wanted to mention a couple of other things I've found annoying:

- On my home computer, I choose to stay logged in and then I have a Fastmail link button in my browser. Now instead of taking me directly to my inbox, clicking the button takes me to the Fastmail login page which shows I'm logged in, then I have to click my account to go to it. What is the point of this? I guess it's for people logged into multiple accounts, but is an unnecessary 2nd click for someone only logged into one account.

- I've had some funky rendering of HTML emails. Sometimes they spill over the right edge of the message frame. One newsletter I get loses some text within links, which is weird.

[labarum]

Originally Posted by mgem

- On my home computer, I choose to stay logged in and then I have a Fastmail link button in my browser. Now instead of taking me directly to my inbox, clicking the button takes me to the Fastmail login page

Go to your Inbox page, or any page showing a sub-folder of it, and bookmark that page. When you click the new bookmark yo should go to your Inbox,(or sub-folder).


[/quote]
I've had some funky rendering of HTML emails. Sometimes they spill over the right edge of the message frame. One newsletter I get loses some text within links, which is weird.[/quote]

By default I read the text part (or a text reduction) of my received emails. I prefer to cut to the heart of the issue and cut out any fancy bits senders might vainly have tried to impress me with! Opening "text only" is, of course the safer option. So this old dinosaur prefers the Classic interface which makes best use of the small screen area on my ultra-portable laptop.

I don't do fancy - that's why I chose Fastmail many years ago.

I would, however, like some fancy font and font-size controls so I can choose what font I see on screen as I can in a good email client.

Conversations? I would like a switch to be able to display threads in a tree as the display in the likes of Thunderbird. .

[mgem]

Originally Posted by labarum

Go to your Inbox page, or any page showing a sub-folder of it, and bookmark that page. When you click the new bookmark yo should go to your Inbox,(or sub-folder).

Thanks! That worked...

[Quilleron]

Good to see all you pioneers/beta-testers/hardy souls persisting with the new interface - I'm sure either that when/if I ever head that way I'll either find that all the bugs have been fixed or that your postings here are of great help.

Anyhow, just to say that my "classic" interface is pretty much back where it was - see full story here - and so I'm relieved not to have to spend any more time thinking about or learning how to use the new interface.

Now that the Classic check box stays on on the login page I shall only venture into the new world when I have plenty of time and a stiff drink to hand!

[Random832]

Going over some older posts in the thread...

Originally Posted by marianh

It didn't make sense for us to show sort by sender in conversations mode, since conversations can be large and have multiple senders.

This is absolutely wrong. Most conversations in my inbox, and I suspect this is true of almost all uses, are not large and do not have multiple senders. Sort by sender should simply separate out all conversations with multiple (other than the user) senders at the top or bottom, or sort by the sender of the earliest message. When you have a folder without a single multiple-message conversation in sight, it really just looks like a missing feature when you can't sort by sender.

Originally Posted by JeffK

I want to be able to do either [delete and previous, delete and next] for each mail, not one or the other for all.

It would be nice to have a fully customizable list of actions (My own most used actions are "previous" and "mark unread and previous" [where 'previous' is the next later-chronologically message while sorted descending by date])

Originally Posted by JohnMike

3. FM is now TOTALLY unsecure. Now when you sign out of FM it actually leaves your session cookie live. So one click and all your mail is exposed. If you are going to have a remain logged option it needs to be an option NOT a default. The only way round this is to close your browser completely. This is a total pain. I will now have to open a separate browser just for FM.

This has not been my experience. Did you actually log out, or did you just close the browser tab? You may complain that closing the browser tab "should" have the effect of logging out; I don't know if it did in the previous version or not - but claiming that "the only way round this" is to close the browser implies that you somehow didn't see the big log out button at the top right corner of the screen.

Originally Posted by Mr David

New interface doesn't need polling. New email deliveries are pushed straight to your Inbox, so they appear instantly without you needing to refresh.

I see others have pointed out that the real use of this feature was showing the number of new messages on the taskbar.

Originally Posted by mephistodan

If I'm selecting 500 how many spaces do I have to hit? How is that efficient if the new interface forces me to do many more clicks/keystrokes instead of ONE MOUSE CLICK?

Do you routinely select all messages in a screen of 500 (and not all in the folder or search) without reviewing what messages you are selecting? I'm sorry, but this seems like a very unusual usage. And if you do review what messages you are selecting, then you've scrolled to the bottom anyway and can shift-click on the bottom message as suggested.

[unam3d]

I noticed in the email newsletter just sent out by FastMail staff the following:

Independently of the new interface, we developed a new login and session management system. In order to reduce the maintenance downtime, we rolled them out simultaneously.

The new system makes it easier to log in to multiple accounts at the same time: all logged-in sessions are listed on the homepage and can be accessed with a single click. This is also a security measure. In the past, it appeared as if you were logged out when closing a browser window, while, in reality, the session was still active and could be accessed from the browser history. To ensure you are logged out, always click "Log out" at the top-right of the screen.

Firstly I find this change annoying as hell, I was able to just point my browser at fastmail.fm and if I was already logged in, go to my inbox. Now I have to load up that ridiculously slow homepage and click my account.

Can I also ask why FastMail decided to do this, when it's standard practice for all other email clients (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc) to let you login directly if you point your browser at their domain (gmail.com, yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc)?

If you wanted to introduce a multiple accounts login, why not emulate what Gmail does? It seems a much more practical way of doing it.